University of Alberta

Date of Birth:
April 24, 1957

I am a man who loves life, music,
fine food and most importantly, ideas

A
Short CV

Dr.
Boulanger cumulates more than 35 years of experience in 3D computer vision,
rapid product development, and the applications of virtual reality systems to
medicine and industrial manufacturing. Dr. Boulanger worked for 18 years at the
National Research Council of Canada as a senior research officer where his
primary research interest was in 3D computer vision, rapid product development,
and virtualized reality systems. He now has a double appointment as a professor
at the University of Alberta Department of Computing Science and at the
Department of Radiology and Diagnostic Imaging. He is currently the Director of
the Advanced Man Machine Interface Laboratory (AMMI) as well as the scientific
Director of the SERVIER Virtual Cardiac Centre. In 2013, Dr. Boulanger was
awarded the CISCO chair in healthcare solutions, a 10 years investment by CISCO
systems in the development of new IT technologies for healthcare in Canada.

His
main research topics are on the development of new techniques for
tele-medicine, patient specific modeling using sensor fusion, and the
application of tele-presence technologies to medical training, simulation, and
collaborative diagnostics. His work has contributed to gain an international
recognition in this field, publishing more than 330 scientific papers and
collaborating with more than 20 universities, research labs, and industrial
companies across the world. He is on the editorial board of two major academic
journals. Dr. Boulanger is also on many international committees and frequently
gives lectures on computational medicine and augmented reality systems. Dr.
Boulanger is also the president of PROTEUS Consulting Inc. a Canadian-based
consulting firm specialized in visual simulation applications. He is also the
CTO of MedROAD Inc.
dedicated to use advanced technology solutions to enhance the health and
quality of life of our clientele worldwide.

This course is an
introductory tobasic principles and algorithms used in current
technologies of multimedia systems. One of the goals of this course is to give the
student hands-on experience in issues relating to multimedia data
representation, compression, processing, and retrieval. In addition, the course
address issues relating to sound transmission, music streaming, 2-D and 3-D
graphics, image and video. It also explores human perceptual issues associated
to multimedia technologies.

Among the greatest
scientific challenges of the 21st century, will be to effectively understand
and make use of the vast amount of information being produced. By its very
nature, visualization addresses the challenges created by such excess: too many
data points, too many variables, too many time steps, and too many potential
explanations. Thus, as we work to tame the accelerating information explosion
and employ it to advance scientific, biomedical, and engineering research,
visualization will be among our most important tools. This course aims
at introducing scientists, engineers, as well as practitioners in medicine the
basic fundamentals of data visualization.

This graduate-level
course is an introduction to the field of haptics focusing on tele-operated and
virtual environments that are displayed through the sense of touch. Topics
covered include human haptic sensing and control, design of haptic interfaces
(tactile and force), haptics for teleoperation, haptic rendering and modeling
of virtual environments, control and stability issues, and medical applications
such as tele-surgery and surgical simulation. This course is addressed to
students with interests in robotics, virtual reality, or computer-integrated
surgical systems.

This
course presents the latest research results in point-based computer graphics.
After an overview of the key research issues, 3D scanning devices are
discussed, and novel concepts for mathematical representation of point-sampled
shapes are presented. The course describes methods for high-performance and
high-quality rendering of point models, including advanced shading,
anti-aliasing, and transparency. It also presents efficient data structures for
hierarchical rendering on modern graphics processors and summarizes methods for
geometric processing, filtering, re-sampling of point models, and physical
modeling.

In recent years,
sensors and algorithms for three-dimensional (3D) imaging and modeling of real
objects have received significant attention, not only in the computer vision
and graphics research communities, but are also increasingly being used as
tools for a variety of applications in medicine, manufacturing, archeology, and
any field requiring 3D modeling of real environments. The main goal of this
course is to present a general overview of digital 3D imaging technology from
photogrammetry to tomographic systems and the various modeling techniques
necessary to create 3D models of large and small structures that are compatible
with various manufacturing and medical applications.

The course will first review two dimensional
signal processing theory after reviewing one dimensional signal processing and
sampling. We will then study four general medical imaging modalities:
projection radiography, computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, and
ultrasound. The goal will be to understand these modalities in terms familiar
to engineers and physicists. Flexibility exists for the instructor to vary the
depth and penetration of each topic area after determining the general
background and experience of the students.

The course deals with moral, legal and social
issues of computer technology. Many ethical issues that did not exist before
are now omnipresent. For example, one can get our news from many free, online
sources but their existence is threatening the existence of the newspapers that
employ the reporters who gather the news. Social media are a great way to
interact but they can threaten personal privacy. This course explores these
issues and more.

This course introduces students to topics in
human computer interaction, focusing on human capabilities and limitations,
interaction design, current and future interaction systems and devices, and
methods for evaluating interaction systems.

This course introduces how to program
heterogeneous parallel computing systems such as GPUs. The course covers: CUDA
language, functionality and maintainability of GPU, how to deal with
scalability, portability issues, technical subjects, parallel programming API,
tools and techniques, principles and patterns of parallel algorithms, processor
architecture features and constraints.

Virtual reality and augmented reality can
provide an immersive environment where many scenarios can be simulated. For
example, manufacturing and engineering tasks, medical planning and training,
art and design, rehabilitation, Physics, Biology and Chemistry concept
exploration and many others can benefit from a virtual reality environment.
This course focuses on the challenges of setting up a user friendly virtual
reality scene where users can interact in an intuitive and natural way. The use
of interactive techniques and sensor-based devices, such as haptic and
head-mount display, in creating a virtual environment for scientific analysis,
visualization exploration and Tele-presence, as well as how mobile users can
participate in these applications, will be discussed.